These end-times events still must soon take place. We are not completely there, yet. But the Lord shows these ‘things to come’ to His servants, the prophets, first.2 He does nothing without first revealing His counsel to them. A man who is warned counts for two. Forewarned is forearmed. If you know when the thief is coming you will take steps to prevent him from breaking into your house.3 But you never know when a thief comes to steal your possessions! In the same week an expensive radio was stolen from our son’s old car, as well as his brand new bicycle that he had just bought with money he had earned from hard work. And he is not the only one to lose things like this. So these losses will make one doubly careful in the future! Yet these things are only material possessions. But when your ‘private space’ has been invaded by thieves and robbers you feel very bad and frustrated. Sometimes even traumatized. “I am Coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown, [steal your crown],”4 says the Lord Jesus. Hold fast to what you have.
This is why the Lord tells His servants, the prophets, what times lay ahead all of us, so that you do not let your most valuable possession be stolen. For if you allow your faith to be taken away, be stolen from you, and you exchange it for the worldly life of the end-times, you will be ‘far from home’ indeed. Therefore, the Amplified Bible says: “I am Coming quickly. Hold tight what you have, so that no one will take your crown [by leading you to renounce your Christian faith].” The times will not improve; they will get worse, for the words John heard and wrote down are ‘trustworthy and true’. The visions of the distant future are ‘trustworthy and true’, not vague fortune-telling or crystal-gazing, but true prophecy. No one knows what the future will hold. Only He Who holds the future knows what the future will hold. And He revealed it to the prophets of Israel – true forecast, future history written in advance, inspired and given by the only One who knows what the future will hold, the everlasting God. He is from ‘eternity to eternity’, from ‘everlasting to everlasting’. This transcends our comprehension, but that is why He is able to have a ‘helicopter’ view of the complete history of His Creation. He looks from the end to the beginning, and vice-versa. Isaiah 46:10 “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’.” He has an overview of the ‘history of the Universe’ and of ‘man’, past – present and future. Nothing happens without Him. And thus He speaks through the mouths of His servants, the prophets of Israel. His messages do not just hold an end-time fulfilment. Faithfully ‘believing people of all the ages’ were and are able to hear God’s voice in His Word and could even apply it to the actual circumstances of their life and of the ‘world in their days’ as well. Even from the prophetic messages about the future they were able to draw a lesson for their daily life, their history-of-the-day. That is the ‘miracle of the living Word of God’ – the miracle of the enlightenment by the Holy Spirit that He wants to give this application to every person who humbly asks this of Him.
Next thing the Apostle John is going to do is to bring this book to a close. There follows an epilogue—a closing word, a final word—and the first words of it connect closely with the beginning words of the Book of Revelation, as if the circle is being completed. The Dutch NBG 1951 version of the Bible records: “And He said to me…” ‘He’ instead of ‘His angel’, like here in the NASB. This Dutch version seems to me to be incorrect. Because this apparently is not God speaking, but the angel God sent to John. God has sent His angel to reveal the Glory of Christ.5 And the angel who was permitted to show John the New Jerusalem and the New Earth now says,6 ‘These words are trustworthy and true, John. God has sent His angel to you to show you everything that is to take place soon. These were not my words however, John, neither were they words spoken by ‘the other Angel’ (Revelation 7:2a, whom we have identified as probably Christ Himself), but the Lord God gave them to us, angels, to speak. He has sent us—His angels—out, and He was also the One who caused and moved the prophets to speak. They did not speak their own words either.7
He is the God of our deepest inner being, communicating with us through our spirit. He is the God who communicates through the spirits of the prophets. (Compare Revelation 19:10 “Then I fell at his feet [of the angel] to worship him. But he *said to me, “Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”) A human being is body [with sensory perceptions to experience the outside world], soul [with personality, intelligence, will, feelings, memory, talents, genetic hereditary properties, gifts and all that makes us to be ‘me’] and spirit [the ‘organ’ that enables us to have contact with the invisible world]. When a person is born-again the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in that person’s spirit. God’s Spirit connects with our spirit, so also with the spirit of the prophet.
The word ‘inspiration’ carries the idea of “in-spiration”, ‘breathing into’, silently ‘communicating with’, or ‘whispering in’, or sometimes even ‘speaking loud and clear’, as in the case of Samuel who heard the voice of the Lord.8 Anyone who gives his life and his heart to God will notice that the Holy Spirit will lead with a ‘silent voice’ his or her inner being, through the Word and the Spirit. He gives you wisdom—for the end-times too. You are then also “in-spired”.
• The comfort for the ancient Churches of Asia Minor, who were the first to receive this divine message, was not just a minor thing. They then knew that the persecutions they were suffering already would pass. ‘Babylon’ (which by them was undoubtedly interpreted as ‘Rome’) would fall. They were absolutely convinced that Jesus would come soon. They therefore knew for sure that the Emperor, in this case Nero, the Emperor of their days—no doubt a pre-eminent type of ‘anti-Christ’—would be judged. This is how Christians of all the ages have read and interpreted this prophetic book in their times: a message of comfort of Christ for them in their circumstances. And they knew that ‘Jesus is the Victor’! He will come ‘conquering’ and all political and other ‘forces of darkness’ will be judged! So, they – and we – take courage in our suffering, Romans 8:31-39; John 16:33b.
• The German pastor, Christoph Blumhardt (1842-1919) didn’t care much for ‘religion’. He wanted the power of true ‘faith’. His critique of Christianity – of the mainline Churches of his days – touched a nerve that is still raw today. For him true faith was a matter of fighting for ‘God’s Kingdom’, the victory of Christ over all injustice and suffering here on earth. Throughout his life, “Jesus is the Victor!” was his battle cry.
• For Blumhardt, Jesus’ triumph over sin and death and the casting out of demons wasn’t an abstraction, but something that he experienced as a reality in his life and in the lives of those around him. The sick were healed, sinners forgiven demons cast out, and relationships being restored. Corrie ten Boom also wrote a wonderful book with the title “Jesus is Victor!”
Bible References:
1.NIV 2.Amos 3:7 3.Matthew 24:43 4.Revelation 3:11 5.Revelation 1:1 6.Revelation 21:9–22:6 7.2 Peter 1:20–21 8.1 Samuel 3
